Reid to force vote on Ryan budget

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday he will hold a vote on Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan when Congress returns from recess — setting up a potential litmus test for Senate Republicans on whether they support Ryan’s dramatic budget cuts.

As Congress hurtles toward its late spring deadline to raise the nation’s debt limit, Reid says he wants to force GOP senators to take a stand on the Ryan plan, which would overhaul Medicare and Medicaid, and cut trillions over the next decade.

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“[We’ll] see if Republican senators like the Ryan budget as much as their House colleagues did,” Reid told reporters on a conference call. “All but two Republicans in the House voted for this. As with H.R. 1, let’s bring it over here and see how people feel about it,” he added, referring to a separate House-approved long-term spending plan that failed in the Senate.

The majority leader added that the Ryan plan “changes Medicaid as we know it,” leaving consumers to “beg for a doctor.” When asked whether he thought the GOP budget measure could clear the Senate, Reid cast a dire view of the impact the Ryan plan would have.

“It would be one of the worst things to happen to this country if this would come into effect,” Reid said. The recess announcement that the Senate would move forward with a budget vote — a maneuver that was not undertaken at all last year — sets the table for a crucial congressional schedule for the rest of this spring.

Reid cited the myriad of budget plans on the menu, from Ryan’s proposal to a Senate Democratic plan being worked out by Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) to the Gang of Six talks and whatever might be negotiated by the presidentially sanctioned bipartisan, bicameral negotiations mediated by Vice President Joe Biden.

Reid also mentioned a budget outline presented in a recent speech by President Barack Obama, adding that he provided a “very, very detailed plan as to what he feels should be done.”

“We have all these moving vehicles, and through all of this we have to find something that makes sense,” Reid said.

Reid says the challenge now is to find a consensus plan.

The bipartisan Gang of Six negotiators are working on a proposal pegged to last year’s deficit commission recommendations, butthey stillhave some distance to go before completing a deal, according to multiple sources close to the talks. Aides close to negotiators say an agreement could be reached within the coming weeks, but that the negotiations are still fragile.